Childcare Vouchers during maternity leave

[mandbaby]

Hello everyone. I'm hoping someone can give me some accurate information. I recently read somewhere online that your employer is obliged to carry on making your childcare voucher contributions while you're on maternity leave.

Is this true?

I currently pay a couple of hundred pounds a month for childcare vouchers but if I have to pay for these myself out of my SMP, I'll barely have anything left! If my employer pays for them while I'm on maternity leave that will massively help!

Yes my employer is continuing to pay them once I'm off. I get three months at 50% pay and they will take it from that but not from smp. My understanding is they have to keep paying it legally

Just had this exact conversation with HR this morning. Basically my employer (public sector, don't think that should make a difference though) will continue to pay whatever amount you currently have arranged without making deductions from SMP. So in my case I get 6 weeks at 90% pay and then 12 weeks at 50% pay plus SMP, so I will basically not get any benefit in this period as deductions will still be made. But after that I go onto SMP only and then no pay at all if I take the full year off. During this period my employer will continue to make the payments and I won't have any deductions made. You can also bank them to use later when you return to work. You can't alter the amount you claim though. Hope that helps.

If you contact your childcare voucher provider, they should be able to help you maximise your benefit - certainly the one I use has adverts all over their site telling you to do just that!